Smoke and/or fires in aircraft are reported weekly in the United States. It has recently been suggested that a majority of these fires may result from the thermal insulation lining the fuselage of the aircraft and the electrical insulation employed in the electrical wiring of the aircraft.
In many instances, the smoke and/or fire occurs in the cockpit of the aircraft or is circulated there. The smoke is often dense enough to substantially reduce or eliminate the pilot's view of the instruments, the pilot's view through the windscreen of the aircraft, and the pilot's ability to communicate by radio with air-traffic controllers, thereby, making it difficult or impossible to pilot the aircraft. This typically causes an uncontrolled crash landing of the aircraft which unfortunately, maximizes casualties and property losses.
Pilot helmets with visors capable of providing instrumentation and video displays have been developed for various purposes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,177 discloses a pilot helmet having a visor display system that enables a pilot to simultaneously view an image of selected display information and scene external to the aircraft during low visibility flight conditions, such as at night. U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,854 discloses a pilot helmet having a visor display system that enable a pilot to view a video image based upon virtual images of the external world in low visibility flight conditions.
These and other similar helmet designs allow air to freely flow in the space between the visor and the pilot's face. In smoke-filled cockpit conditions, this space can quickly fill with smoke thus, rendering such helmets unusable for piloting the aircraft.
Accordingly, a need exists for an emergency operating system that permits a pilot in a smoke-filled cockpit environment to view minimum aircraft operating system information and external aircraft image scenes, and communicate with air-traffic controllers.